Most fuel-efficient cars on test

Tony Middlehurst

Published:17:39Monday 14 November 2016

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Here’s a turn up for the books: cars are actually doing more miles per gallon than the official figures say they should.

Following up on owner complaints that most modern cars weren’t getting anywhere near their official economy figures, What Car? magazine established its own strictly controlled laboratory fuel testing process based on a real route that takes in town, rural and motorway driving.

The majority of cars What Car? tests still fail to hit their official mpg figures, but this month three models tested by the magazine managed to improve on them.

And more surprising still, the three in question are all sporty numbers.

Fiat’s 124 Spider 1.4 Multiair Lusso scored a 0.3% improvement on its official 44.1mpg figure by achieving a True MPG figure of 44.2mpg.

That put it in 9th place overall. In 8th overall, posting a True MPG figure of 45.2mpg – 2.5% better than the official figure of 44.1mpg – was Suzuki’s Swift Sport.

The best real-world performance, relative to its official mpg figure, was put in by Mazda’s MX-5 2.0 Sport Nav. Its True MPG score of 47.9mpg made it the third most economical car tested by What Car? during the month, and was a massive 17.1% better than the official claim of 40.9mpg.